PS 

3537 

T42 

Y6 

1916 

MAIN 


CA8S 

e 


BY  GEORGE  STERLING 

The  Testimony  of  the  Suns  and  Other 

Poems.  Crown  8vo.  Cloth  $1.25 

A  Wine  of  Wizardry  and  Other 

Poems.  Crown  8vo.  Cloth  1.25 

The  House  of  Orchids  and  Other 

Poems.  Crown  8vo.  Cloth  1.25 

Beyond  the  Breakers  and  Other 

Poems.  Crown  8vo.  Cloth  1.25 

Yosemite.    Crown   8vo.  Full  Paper 

Boards,  Illustrated  .75 

Ode  on  the  Opening  of  the  Panama- 
Pacific  International  Exposition. 
Limited  edition  on  hand-made 
paper  and  the  type  distributed. 
Small  4to.  Full  Hand- Made  Paper 
over  Boards  l-7S 

A.  M.  ROBERTSON 
San  Francisco 


^  \\ 


From  Tosemite  Falls 


Y  O   S   E   M   I  T  E 

Ode 


BY 


GEORGE  STERLING 


WITH 

Cover  in  Color  <LAfter  the  Tainting  by 
H.  J.  BREUER 

AND 

Illustrations  *After  ^Photographs  by 
W.  E.  DASSONVILLE 


San  Francisco 
A.M.ROBERTSON 

MCMXVI 


COPYRIGHT,    1915,    BY 

A.  M.  ROBERTSON 


PR*NJrJEJ>rtfY ^TAYLOR  V  TAYLOR,  SAN  FRANCISCO 


c 

TO    UNITED    STATES    SENATOR 
JAMES    DUVAL    PHELAN 


785925 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

•f    -f    f 

After  the  painting  by  H.  J.  BREUER: 
YOSEMITE  On  the  cover 

After  photographs  by  W.  E.  DASSONVILLE  : 
From  Yosemite  Falls  Frontispiece 

The  Yosemite  Falls  Opposite  page  2 

The  Bridal  Veil  Falls  6 

Twilight  10 

Morning — the  Half-Dome  15 


YOS  E  M I T  E 


Y    O    S    E    M     I     T    E 


BEAUTY,  whose  face  and  mystery  we  seek, 
Forever  longing  and  forever  foiled, — 
Whose  praise  the  voices  of  our  art  would  speak, 
And  in  whose  faith  all  art  and  love  have  toiled, 
Be  gracious,  where  in  vain, 
Here  at  thy  noblest  fane, 
Where  silent  summits  lift, 
I  heap  thine  altar-stone  with  humble  flow'rs, 
The  mute  bestowal  of  my  happier  hours — 

The  hours  that  held  thy  pain, 
The  heart-ache  of  thy  presence  and  its  stress. 
Be  gracious  to  the  giver  and  the  gift, 

And  be  thy  ruth 
Some  aspect  of  thine  inner  loveliness 

Or  instant  blaze 

Of  sunlight  on  the  marbles  of  thy  truth, 
Where  I  may  stand  and  gaze 


Y  O  S  E  M   I  T 


Ere  following  night  confess 
How  art  betrays  us,  even  in  its  youth, 
And  of  thy  sudden  vision  and  its  bliss 
We  give  but  broken  news  and  songs  amiss. 

f 

The  primal  gleam 
Of  thy  far  wings  on  Time's  remoter  skies 

Drew  first  man's  eyes 
To  that  high  star  which  is  the  light  of  Dream. 

Dimly  he  saw 
Thy  splendor  past  the  range  of  brutish  law, 

And  slowly  found  the  trace 

And  latency  of  thee 

In  fire  and  morning  and  the  lily's  cup,  — 
In  quiet  waters  and  the  lifted  sea,— 

In  his  beloved's  face, 

With  eyes  like  those  of  the  awakened  fawn. 
So  grew  his  adoration,  dawn  and  dawn, 
Sunset  and  sunset  slowly  storing  up 

Their  unforgotten  flame 
And  nacre  in  his  soul's  deep  dwelling-place, 
Till  at  the  last  he  named  thee  with  thy  name. 
t 

Thou,  too,  art  bond  to  Change, 
And  we,  the  far  descendants  of  the  brute, 


To  Semite  Falls 


YOSEMITE 


Find  ever  in  thy  realm  the  new  and  strange, 
Our  vision  of  thee  deepening  with  the  years, 
And  with  our  hearts  that  sorrow  and  transmute. 
By  duty  and  the  alchemy  of  tears, 

By  all  our  nobler  fears, 
We  find  thy  graces  for  a  time  withheld  — 
Honor  and  gentleness  and  faith  in  man, 
And  self  to  self's  own  sacrifice  impelled, 
And  Love  whose  gaze  grows  upward,  star  by  star. 
And  what  the  farther  glories  of  thy  Plan 
We  know  not,  thou  whose  wings  go  forth  so  far  ! 

But  though  thou  be 
The  daughter  and  the  phantom  of  man's  soul, 

Our  hearts  acknowledge  thee, 
And  thy  last  flight  shall  be  the  human  goal. 

II 

Not  on  Romance's  hills, 
Forsaken  by  the  lover  and  the  lute, 

Nor  pure  Illyrian  rills, 
Nor  western  islands  sung  by  lips  long  mute, 
Is  thy  last  secrecy  and  utmost  throne, 

Whose  morning  snows  thou  hast. 
Though  one  should  seek  thy  temple,  zone  by  zone, 
In  this  far  valley  would  he  kneel  at  last, 


[  3  ] 


•at 


YOSEMITE 


The  world-wide  questing  done. 

Here  shall  the  seeker  scan 
The  mighty  chancel  of  thy  holy  place, 

Not  as  the  fanes  of  man, 
Whose  marble  is  a  mist  before  Time's  sun,  — 

Whose  term  the  years  allot,  — 

Whose  ruins  man  shall  trace, 
But  as  a  House  to  be  when  Time  is  not. 

f 

O  terrible,  abiding  and  august, 
The  walls  wheref  rom  thine  eagles  have  their  path  ! 
Bastions  sublime,  cliffs  inaccessible 

To  giants  in  their  wrath  ! 
O  summits  lifted  unto  endless  Good  ! 
Heights  that  the  hands  of  Law  shall  not  annul 
When  all  the  pyramids  are  trodden  dust  ! 
Well  were  it  that  the  fabled  seraph  stood 
With  quenchless  sword  before  the  shielded  portal, 
Crying,  "Bare  ye  your  heads  and  transient  feet, 
For  ye  are  face  to  face  with  the  Immortal, 
The  beauty  which  to  gaze  on  is  to  live  !  " 
Lo  !  here  sublimity  and  beauty  meet, 
Meet  in  a  final  covenant  and  give 
Unto  man's  heart  and  soul  for  everlasting 
The  sum  and  measure  of  their  deathless  grace,  — 


[  4  ] 


YOSEMITE 


The  guerdon  of  their  good, 
A  promise  and  a  portent,  a  forecasting 
Of  those  far  halls  that  yet  shall  house  the  race, 
When  self  and  night  have  died  in  Brotherhood. 

» 

O  domes  and  towers  and  stupendous  walls  ! 
O  voices  of  auroral  waterfalls  ! 
Sierran  thunderheads  of  cloud  or  stone 
That  share  the  heavens  as  a  realm  o'erthrown  ! 
How  high  your  ancestry  in  Nature's  art! 
Here  once  the  unfathomable  granite  lay 

Ungraven  to  the  day 
And  burdened  with  deep  rivers  of  the  ice. 
But  age  by  age  slow  billows  rent  apart 
The  cold  foundations  and  the  chiselled  flanks, 

Till  pinnacle  and  tower 

Told  from  their  westward  ranks 
Where  sank  the  abysmal  quarries  of  the  Power. 

O  patient  centuries 

That  with  so  vast  device 

Frame  strongholds  such  as  these  ! 
O  battlements  arisen  to  the  sky, 
Whence  gods  might  chant  to  the  departing  sun 

Hymns  of  oblivion, 
Or  iron  litanies  of  worlds  that  die  ! 


[  5  ] 


Y  O  S  E  M  I  T  E 


III 

Here  skyward  gazing  from  the  Valley's  floor 
One  sees  the  imperishable  ramparts  soar 

To  base  the  doming  blue  ; 
Yet  here  the  noon  takes  not  the  vestal  dew 
In  emerald  gardens  walled  with  majesty 
And  groves  that  were  when  Tyre  was  tyrannous  — 

A  dusk  from  sorrow  free, 
A  haunt  of  fauns  where  care  seems  not  to  be 

Nor  any  need  of  words. 
O  refuge  green  and  home  unperilous 
In  meadows  ringed  about  with  happy  birds, 
Where  butterflies  are  given  all  their  will,  — 

Where  ferny  fronds  are  curled, 
Shadowed  by  crags  whose  fall  would  shake  the  world  ! 

O  whisperings  that  stir, 
In  slender  crests  of  the  aeolian  fir, 
From  winds  that  mourn  in  music,  and  are  still  ! 
Recesses  where  the  feet  of  Time  are  slow, 
Dwelt  in  by  flowers  whose  name  we  would  not  know  ! 

9 

But  voices  come  that  urge  us  from  your  peace, 
Where  the  inviolable  waterfall 

Ere  winter  give  it  cease, 
Shakes  all  day  long  a  thunder  from  its  wall, 


The  Bridal  Veil  Falls 


Y  O  S  E  M  I  T  E 


Or  in  the  darkness,  like  a  Titan's  ghost, 
Moans  as  the  sea  on  some  tormented  coast. 

Hark  then  its  call  ! 

To  that  high  music  give  your  souls  in  keeping  ! 
Ascend  at  dawn  to  that  uplifted  place 
Whence  the  doomed  torrent,  from  its  eyrie  leaping, 
Takes  virgin  vesture  and  immortal  grace. 

Beauty  surpassing  all  ! 

Splendor  of  whiteness,  foam  of  pearls  that  crash 
To  rainbow-mist  on  barriers  immense  ! 
Iris  and  veils  of  amethyst  that  lash 
The  eternal  granite  in  magnificence  ! 
Can  eyes  behold  you  save  with  rapture  wet, 
Or  turn  them  from  your  glory  and  forget^ 

* 
O  falling  rivers,  beautful  in  doom  ! 

Your  lofty  raiments  sway 
As  mountain-winds  fling  wider  to  the  day 
The  sounding  fabric  of  a  stony  loom. 
Walls  that  endure,  waters  that  pass  away  ! 
Peaks  that  are  silent,  streams  that  sunward  call 
From  thundrous  caldrons  moulded  not  by  hands  ! 
Waters  that  flow  to  other  men  and  lands, 
Till,  ocean  clouds,  ye  take  the  heavens  again, 
And  the  Sierran  rain 


[  7  ] 


Y  O  S  E  M  I  T  E 


Quivers  once  more  upon  the  mountain  wall ! 
Ye  come  and  pass  and  come  again — ah !  so 

Do  mortals  come  and  go? 
And  is  the  passing  and  returning  all? 

O  secret  path  of  man ! 
O  butterfly  above  the  waterfall ! 
O  lizard  peering  from  El  Capitan ! 
Ashes  of  sunset,  altar-fires  of  morn, 
Seasons  of  doom,  and  surge  of  wings  reborn ! 

IV 

Beauty  on  Heaven's  nectar  and  Earth's  bread 

Miraculously  feeds. 

Her  elder  pathway  leads 

To  that  acceptant  spot 
Where  scorn  of  any  simple  thing  is  not, 
And  gods  on  dust  and  man  on  stars  have  fed. 
Yet  needs  she  heights  to  test  her  pinions'  pow'r, 
Ascendant  from  the  glow-worm  and  the  flow'r 

To  heavens  cloud-empearled, — 

To  thrones  of  azure  air 

And  snows  from  which  the  morning  greets  the  world. 
Look  down,  and  see  the  grasses  in  her  care ; 
Then  from  this  granite  and  tremendous  dome 
Gaze  eastward  to  the  mountains  in  their  might. 


[8] 


Y  O  S  E  M   I  T  E 


Far  down  the  torrents  foam  ; 

Far  up  the  eagles  float  ; 

Far  off  the  enormous  ramparts  wait  the  night, 
Unsentineled,  untroubled  and  remote. 
Southward  to  where  the  desert  waits  in  death, 
And  north  to  lonely  Shasta'  s  stormy  breath, 
The  fortresses  of  the  eternal  run, 
Unaltered  by  the  lightnings  and  the  sun. 
Thence  the  young  rivers  hasten  to  the  deep, 

And  there  the  advancing  day 
Gathers  its  legions  for  their  seaward  sweep. 
Thence  go  the  winds  like  angels  forth  to  slay, 
And  there  all  night  the  avalanches  sleep. 

» 

Now  lies  the  noon  upon  those  fields  of  stone 
And  forests  where  the  wind  seems  glad  to  cease. 
Below,  the  snowy  cataract  alone, 

Though  here  unheard,  is  loud. 

Above,  a  single  cloud 
Rears  on  the  turquoise  cavern  of  the  sky 
Its  towering  pearl  and  alabaster  throne. 
The  vast,  ineffable  Sierran  peace 

Holds  not  a  sigh, 

Where  the  stilled  soul  accepts  her  large  release 
From  memories  that  sorrow  ere  they  die. 


[  9  ] 


Y  O  S  E  M  I  T 


Ah  !  human  heart,  that  hast  in  store  such  tears  ! 

Put  by  thy  grief  beside  these  lucid  fountains  ! 

Forget  the  sadder  voices  of  thy  years  ! 

Thy  refuge  is  the  everlasting  mountains, 

Thy  respite  the  compassion  of  their  night, 

And  crystal  voices  lifted  to  thine  ears 

From  those  clear  springs  of  loveliness  and  light. 

Far  off,  the  cities  roar  ; 

Far  down,  the  world  awaits  thee,  and  its  pain  : 
Have  rest,  ere  ancient  burdens  be  once  more, 
And  silence,  ere  the  tumult  wake  again  ! 

* 
The  swirling  river  murmurs  to  the  fir 

And  balsamed  shadows  stir; 

Far  up  the  afternoon 
Floats  the  frail  silver  of  the  day-moon's  dome. 

On  summits  glacier-hewn 
The  reawakened  winds  begin  to  roam 

Sweet  with  the  forest's  myrrh, 
And  casting  on  the  world  an  undertone 

So  deeper  than  their  own  ! 
Follow,  beneath  the  granite's  rugged  crown  — 
O  boiling  gorges  and  victorious  roar 
Of  lion-throated  torrents  pouring  down 
In  sounding  onset  to  the  valley-floor  ! 


[10] 


twilight 


.  .  > 


•  f, 
'«* 


YOSEMITE 


White  bridals  of  the  water  and  the  air, 
As  the  rent  crystal  sweeps  to  choral  foam  ! 

Oh  !  whiter  than  the  star 

With  no  horizon-home, 
That  sets  not,  though  the  truceless  morning  come  ! 

And  fairer  still  than  these 

Or  surf  of  western  seas, 
Thy  rainbow,  like  an  angel's  scimitar, 
Slaying  with  beauty  till  the  soul  is  dumb 
For  lack  of  that  high  speech  the  seraphs  know  ! 
By  what  acclaim  shall  man  acknowledge  this, 
And  with  what  songs  give  raiment  to  his  bliss*? 

O  floods  and  hues  that  flow  ! 
O  chords  and  voices  of  the  deathless  dead, 
And  visioned  music  of  their  lyric  rite, 
When  Beauty's  altar  shone  with  wilder  light, 
And  singing  lips  on  richer  milk  were  fed  ! 

V 

The  hermit  thrush  has  fluted  from  his  tree, 
Unanswered  in  the  quietude.  The  sun 
Goes  forth  on  scarlet  thresholds  to  the  sea. 
The  many  shadows  gather  unto  one, 
Paving  the  Valley  in  solemnity. 
The  darkness  does  not  fall, 


[11] 


Y  O  S  E  M  I  T  E 


But  rising  slow,  the  tidal  shadow  drowns, 
One  after  one,  the  ledges  and  the  crowns, 
The  graven  cliffs,  the  ramparts  and  the  spires. 
The  world's  arisen  shade  hath  buried  all, 
Save  where,  to  us,  the  last  of  day's  far  fires, 

Ere  sunset  flee, 

High  on  the  headland  of  the  South  Dome  lies. 
O  giant  bulk  !  O  monarch  of  our  skies  ! 
Soaring  in  rose  from  twilight's  purple  sea  ! 
Thine  afterglow,  the  memory  of  day, 

Can  but  a  little  stay  ; 
But  in  our  souls  the  glory  may  not  cease, 

One  with  ethereal  things  — 
The  torrent's  song,  the  cedar's  whisperings, 

The  dawn's  divine  increase, 
The  loneliness  and  mystery  and  peace 
Of  evening  mountains  watched  from  far  away. 

? 

On  snows  and  pinnacle  and  river  lies 
The  vast  Sierran  night,  augustly  dumb. 
Keep  vigil,  ere  the  faithful  morning  come 

Across  Nevada's  skies. 
Below  the  moonless  heavens  deeply  starred, 
The  forests  sleep,  unhaunted  by  the  wind; 

The  lone,  Titanic  peaks 


[12] 


YOSEMITE 


Between  the  stars  and  forest  stand  at  guard. 
What  is  it  that  the  yearning  planet  seeks  — 
This  homeless  world  that  wanders  lost  and  blind? 
She  finds  not  any  solace  in  the  night 

Nor  haven  for  her  flight  : 
Let  us  forget  the  cold  abyss,  and  turn 

To  where  man's  hearthstones  burn  .  .  . 

Far  eastward  breaks  the  light 
On  cities  rising  to  their  endless  toil, 

On  multitudes  whose  eyes 

The  Vision  flies  — 

Serfs  to  the  waiting  engines  and  the  soil. 
And  little  children  to  the  untimely  task 
Stumble  at  dawn,  and  know  their  masters  sleep. 

O  blind  and  bartered  poor  ! 
Must  these  things  be  forever,  though  we  ask 
Why  ye  to  tawdry  pleasures  and  false  arts 

Must  turn  your  cheated  hearts? 

To  these,  and  less, 

Barred  from  our  earth's  exalting  loveliness. 
For  alway  must  the  monstrous  Scheme  endure 
That  keeps  the  many  to  their  labor  bound  — 
Banished  from  these  clean  heights  and  gracious  ground? 
Shall  not  the  atoning  season  come  at  last 
When  any  son  of  earth  may  lift  his  face 


[13] 


YOSEMITE 


To  battlements  of  this  transcendent  place  — 
Freed  from  the  hateful  dungeons  of  the  Past? 

O  hungered  mouths  unfed 
From  that  immortal  urn  whose  holy  flood 

Is  Beauty's  holier  blood  ! 
O  sacrament  of  her  terrestrial  bread  ! 
O  Valley  waiting  through  the  wistful  years, 

The  sure  though  distant  tread 
Of  those  young  armies  of  the  Comrade  State  ! 

Fair  lands  reconsecrate, 
And  toils  that  yet  shall  end  in  happy  tears  ! 

Under  the  midnight's  arch, 
Slowly  those  ranks  are  forming  for  the  march, 
Ere  the  Night  falter  and  the  legions  are 
Led  on  and  upward  by  their  morning  star. 

* 
The  morning  star  !  Now  eastward  on  the  night 

Her  pure,  unstirring  light 
Glows  like  the  matin  taper  of  a  nun. 
Arcturus  sets.  The  Pleiades,  upborne 

On  the  wide  surf  of  morn, 
Join  shuddering  the  rout  of  stars  begun 
By  those  red  swords  made  vanguard  to  the  sun. 
The  Valley  lies  below  us  like  a  cup, 
Filled  with  the  wine  of  Twilight  and  her  dream. 


[HI 


"'  • 


Morning  —  the  Half  -Dome 


YOSEMITE 


Nevada  flames.  The  mountain  walls  send  up 
Their  eagles  on  the  morning,  ere  the  gleam 
Of  the  great  day-star  fall  on  wood  and  stream 

From  south  to  north 
What  golden  wings,  what  argent  feet  go  forth 

On  heaven  and  radiant  snows  ! 

What  archangelic  flights 
Of  seraphim  from  everlasting  heights,  — 
From  citadels  colossal,  where  the  song 

Of  giant  winds  is  strong, 
And,  washed  in  timeless  fire,  the  granite  glows 
With  silver  and  unutterable  rose  ! 

? 
O  vaster  Dawn,  ascendant  and  sublime, 

That  past  the  peaks  of  Time 

And  midnight  stars'  array, 
Dost  bear  the  magnitude  of  skies  to  be, 

What  hopes  go  forth  to  thee  ! 

O  glad,  unrisen  Day  ! 
The  soul,  an  eagle  from  its  eyrie  yearning, 
Goes  up  against  the  splendor  and  the  burning  — 
Goes  up,  and  sees  afar  the  world  made  free  ! 

O  liberty  to  come  ! 

What  trumpets  shall  announce  thee  on  what  glooms'? 
What  lips  now  dumb 


[15] 


YOSEMITE 


Shall  sing  thine  ancient  victories  and  dooms, 

And  in  what  halls 
Shall  man  set  up  an  altar  to  thy  star? 

Yea  !  though  the  time  be  far, 
Shall  not  thy  song  be  lifted  to  these  walls 
And  on  these  peaks  shall  not  thy  banners  shine? 

O  Dawn  divine  ! 
On  eastern  skies  I  see  thy  chariots  hurled, 

And  on  the  reeling  night 

The  legions  of  thy  light, 
With  morning  !  morning  !  morning  !  on  the  world  ! 


THE  END 


[16] 


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